Owl City - The Booth by The Furthest Window
by cLoswin
Summary: A young musician produces music in his local diner, and Vienna, a shy teenage table-scrubber, thinks he is the absolute epitome of interesting. Of course they haven't spoken.


**For beautiful Eivily, for the Tumblr Hoot Owl Secret Santa. **

**This is chapter one. A story about a younger Adam Young (Owl City) producing music in a local diner in the wintertime. I thought it would be pretty. I don't think it's very realistic. It could be like an alternate universe. **

"_Hey Aunt Norah-what time did he come in today?"_

"Who do you mean?"

"The boy who sits in the booth by the furthest window."

"I started work at two and he walked in the diner shortly after, like usual. He's ordered six coffees this afternoon, looks like he's about to fall asleep, eh? Say, what do you think he does on that laptop?"

"Hm. I don't know, Auntie, beats me."

"He should be at home with his family. It's almost Christmas! You know where I would be If I didn't have to hold this place up? At home, in my hot tub!"

Vienna flicked a strand of her long blonde hair looked to her left and toward the frosted foggy window. Beside it the young mysterious man sat working contentedly. His eyes were surrounded by deep dark circles resulting in extreme lack of sleep. Clad in a beige and brown winter sweater, his eyes were focused solely toward the illuminated screen of his laptop. He finally moved to brush a wisp of hair to the side of his face and fiddle with the pages full of scribbled black ink scattered over the orange retro pleather bench he sat on.

That was interesting. Usually he preferred blue pen. Or so Vienna had observed from afar.

She quickly snapped her head back in fear of him noticing her, and resumed scrubbing the counter. Her Auntie Norah was on the other side of the bar making a cappuccino for a customer. Vienna sighed, collected her cloth, began to scrub crumb coated tables.

That boy-he had come in _every day consecutively_ for the past two months, maybe longer. Vienna had been working at the dingy local diner for just that long-since she had decided she'd be attending college the following fall, and needed to earn a few extra dollars for her living expenses. Most of the waitresses and cleaners at the little eatery had become accustomed to reoccurrences and oddities of all sorts that took place there, but Vienna felt a special keenness and curiosity toward all of the interesting things that happened each afternoon she came in to work.

This young boy in particular had proven to be quite interesting topic of thought, someone she would very much like to learn about. Vienna noticed him on her first day of work back in mid-September, when he arrived; his laptop huddled closely to his chest, toward the wrinkled baseball t-shirt Vienna noticed he wore most often on the Tuesdays.

She had been sneaking peaks at the unusually quiet young man between mopping the floors and scrubbing the breakfast bar for the entire duration of her employment at the diner. Every time Norah served him a coffee, Vienna would stop what she was doing and listen closely to his hushed "thank you" and the clink of the cup as he lifted it from its saucer for his first sip. His voice was so very kind. She wanted to hear it closer, louder, or clearer, maybe hear it speak to _her_.

Vienna would glance periodically at the boy when he sat with his overly large headphones on, and wonder what he could be listening to. Sometimes, when the diner was deserted but for him, she could hear little bits of metallic, energising music coming from his headset, and she would often attempt to work out what songs he might have been listening to.

She couldn't pinpoint it, but she knew there was something especially interesting about this boy, that she simply _needed_ to learn. He was odd and shy, but Vienna was, from the moment she laid eyes on him, drawn to know everything about him.

Why she hadn't approached him already? She hardly had a good excuse. Whether she was focused on her task, had a bit of a cold, or wasn't in a very sociable mood and was nervous she might say something offensive, Vienna always had a silly, invalid excuse for not saying hello to the living breathing mystery that sat at his table, tapping carefully at his keyboard every afternoon.

Vienna heard a light shuffling of what sounded like gathering of papers, and accompanied by a short click, and she glanced up from straightening the salt and peppers on a table. Surely enough, the young man was collecting his things and taking his leave. Without a word he headed toward the back exit, leaving only a few bills on the table and the jingling of the holiday bells that hung on the door.

It was the same every day-the clattering of papers, the click of the laptop, the bills. And every day Vienna realised how much less likely it was that she might work up the courage to talk to the wispy haired, tired eyed, shy boy who sat looking so very interesting in the booth by the furthest window.


End file.
